


A song of silence and blood

by samariumwriting



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Body Horror, Manakete Degeneration, Nonbinary My Unit | Kamui | Corrin, Post-Canon, Post-Fire Emblem Fates: Revelation, Psychological Horror, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-04
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:07:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25717015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samariumwriting/pseuds/samariumwriting
Summary: Corrin is old, and the history of Valla repeats itself once more.-Someone darted through a street in front of them, and Corrin watched in horror as their body swung round, their wings beating as they lunged. Their jaws closed with a sickening creak, and they tasted blood. They couldn’t stop themselves.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11
Collections: Calamity's Advent, samariumwriting's Invincible Zine Server fics





	A song of silence and blood

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was for the Invincible Zine Server's horror and angst zine, Calamity's Advent! You can find the link on their twitter @InvincibleZine and check out the Huge (300+ pages!!) zine for free if you so wish

Valla was a beautiful place. The fields stretched on, green and seemingly endless, and the trees teemed with wildlife. Under the spring sunlight, the water shone clear and bright. And perched in the middle of this beauty was a bustling city, full of happy, prosperous people.

At the centre of this city was Corrin, the monarch who had reigned Valla for many a year. Each of their days was filled with the knowledge that they were surrounded by people who loved and adored their every word. When they went out to the city’s marketplace, they could barely move for smiles, words of gratitude.

But Corrin was also...they were getting old. They had ruled Valla almost for longer than anyone could remember, and their once-auburn hair was now stark white. Wrinkles pinched around their eyes - at first, these had just been from a lifetime of smiling, but now they carved deep patterns into their face.

Their pace as they walked was a little stilted; they were still physically fit, but their attention tended to-

Corrin stretched, wincing at the pop in their back as they moved to get out of bed. They paused. It was the morning, but...had it not just been the afternoon? They  _ had _ been out in the town, but they didn’t know when that had been. Had something happened? None of their advisors seemed concerned, and they didn’t feel ill.

But the gap remained. They couldn’t remember how much they had lost, or what had happened in that time. And while they expected the memories to surface at some point, Corrin found they just...didn’t.

The blank spots in their memory remained. Widened. Increased in frequency. Corrin took to trying to keep track of the date, but it slipped through their fingers alarmingly quickly. It was frustrating, to say the least, and in truth...it was slightly disturbing.

The frustration wore at their mind, until- “Would you just be quiet?” they snapped. An advisor had been telling them, at great length, about some crop management that needed changing. They really didn’t need to hear it; they knew not the slightest thing about crop rotation and couldn’t provide any advice.

In the moment after their outburst, there was silence. Their advisor stepped backwards a little, apologising, and he looked...afraid. Corrin’s breath caught in their throat.

They were not an angry person. They’d  _ never _ been an angry person. Their whole life was built on forgiveness, the strength of love to help people overcome any obstacle. But they’d snapped at someone for talking to them when his entire function was to talk- and their mind had reduced him to a function. They couldn’t even remember his name.

That night, they went to bed ill at ease, and the things they dreamed...it was terrible. The city in Valla that they knew and loved lay in ruins around them. Smoke plumed into the air, and the stench of death filled everything.

Corrin had shifted into their dragon form, and the bones of corpses crunched beneath their feet. They walked on, seemingly uncaring for the destruction around them, even as their heart raced and they wanted to retch at the mere sight of it all.

Someone darted through a street in front of them, and Corrin watched in horror as their body swung round, their wings beating as they lunged. Their jaws closed with a sickening creak, and they tasted blood. They couldn’t stop themselves. They needed to stop, they needed to set this person free or they would surely die, and-

Corrin woke up, their breathing heavy and their body feeling weighed down against the bed. They shifted, confused and still blinking away the fear of the night terror, but something felt wrong. Their body was…

They looked down at their arms. Instead of the freckled, wrinkled skin they were used to, their arms held the scales of a dragon. Their heart rate, already high from the nightmare, soared even higher, and they desperately tried to keep a hold of their thoughts.

In and out. In and out. Corrin carefully regulated their breathing as it came in short spurts beyond their control, desperately trying to get enough oxygen into their lungs. They didn’t know how long they spent there, their mind racing, their body half shifted, but it was too long. It was terrifying.

And it didn’t stop. The nightmares recurred every night, and each morning it became harder to shift back. Sometimes they woke with the taste of blood in their mouth, unable to distinguish if it was real or imagined. Sometimes they were unable to rise until the afternoon, leaving their advisors increasingly concerned about an affliction they couldn’t name.

It set them on edge even more, and each day it got harder to keep their cool. They hated feeling the anger rise inside them, but they couldn’t hold it back. And with anger came terror, and with terror came more frustration at themself and others.

“Your Majesty, for the sake of the water supply, I would highly advise you-”

“Just do it yourself!” they snapped, but it came out as a roar, and before they knew it, they were out of their seat and on all fours, wings sprouting from their back as they snarled at the advisor. They only just managed to stop short of raking claws down her front.

For a moment, everything stood still, their advisors frozen in terror. Corrin froze in terror. This time, shifting back came inexplicably easily, leaving them exhausted and afraid. With shaking limbs, Corrin withdrew back to their throne. No one around them relaxed.

“A...new issue for business,” they said. Their voice sounded smaller than they wanted it to. “Perhaps I should appoint a successor.”

They didn’t know what this was, and they couldn’t explain it. But Corrin knew that if they couldn’t solve it, they couldn’t remain as the ruler of Valla. It would put too many people in danger, and they had enough of their heart remaining to care about that.

Once the problem was out in the open, they were able to set some plans in stone fairly quickly. When they abdicated, there was someone lined up to succeed them; someone they trusted, when they had the wherewithal to trust.

Those times of lucidity became fewer and far between. Each night was plagued by the same dreams, and each time it got harder and harder to change their body back to normal. The gaps in their mind widened ever further, days or months passing that would just vanish like dust in the wind.

At some point - though they didn’t remember when they decided - they gave up on returning their body to something resembling human. Their limbs felt twisted, awkward. It was unwieldy and, above all, looked…

The people of Valla viewed them with fear, apprehension. No one wanted to sit by them when they took their meals, so they retreated. No one came to them on the throne, afraid of the snarl half-fixed on their face. They avoided going down to the marketplace, knowing that children would only run and cry in terror.

It made their being cloud with rage. Hadn’t they done enough for the Vallites? Had they not led them out of tyranny and into a brighter future? Now that their body was twisted and their mind faltered, did they no longer deserve the love of the people they had given everything to?

Anger consumed them, at times. They ended each day with the knowledge that if their dream came true, surely it was just what the people of Valla deserved. For abandoning them, for rejecting the care they had shown for over a hundred years (how much longer, they could not recall - only that the people they had won the Kingdom alongside were now long gone).

So it was only natural that one day, Corrin woke not in their claw-marked bedroom but in the town. Beneath them, there was a body. Stained in blood.

There was a metallic taste in their mouth. One they recognised from long ago, when their own blood - and not another’s - soured their taste buds.

They stopped, pulling their head back and stepping away from the body they’d pinned to the ground, but it was too late. The person was already dead, and the townspeople crowded round kept their distance, watching with fearful eyes. 

They slipped further. What else was there to do? They feared themselves (who wouldn’t?) and hated anyone who showed that feeling in reply. The people of Valla feared them -  _ loathed _ them, and half of Corrin wanted them to pay.

The other half knew that they were right.

It came to a head, because of course it did, before they even realised what was happening. It was an idle suggestion, posed tentatively and half whispered to no one. “Maybe you should step down,” the advisor said, and Corrin acted without thinking.

The man was dead before he hit the ground, and this time there was no silent fear as a response. This time, the people of Valla took up the swords Corrin had enabled them to put down and chased them from the capital.

Corrin probably could have resisted. They knew why they did not.

From there, the end was sealed. Where before they had struggled to maintain the human shape of their limbs, they now abandoned all hope of seeing the face they once knew reflected in a pool of water. In its place, they saw only a jaw of sharpened, horrible teeth, and eyes that gleamed with hysteria they could no longer shake.

They roamed the woods outside Valla’s capital, unable to bring themselves to leave the land that was theirs by right (by effort, by blood and tears and abandoned hopes and dreams) but unable to fully return. Of course, the city sent soldiers after them. Hunters who had never fought a dragon.

It hurt. It hurt more than anything they had ever experienced. Their mind wouldn’t let them rest, wouldn’t let them just accept their failure and move on. Instead, every thought stabbed at a body that withered away more with each day.

The human locked away inside that body still cried out in pain when the too-large, too-old, too- _ alive _ body tore rotting claws through living flesh. Those people had a reason to live, so why were they the ones who had to die?

They had been a good person once. Back then, they’d fought for their life. Fought for people they cared about. Now...

The most recent group was large. Corrin’s legs folded awkwardly on the pile of bodies. They tried not to look, but it was difficult when they were strewn all over the place, as far as the eye could see - at least, as far as their eyes could, weakened with time.

It was the largest group they’d faced before, so they should have known it was a sign of something even larger on the horizon. Within the week, they knew what that larger something was.

At the head of the latest group was a bright haired youth, backed up by a plucky, vibrant group who traded quips during battle and effortlessly dodged Corrin’s slow yet effortless blows. They landed hit after hit on so many of the fighters, but the tides didn’t part.

The group battered them from above - a purple haired woman on a wyvern, constantly on their tail, preventing them from rising to their full height to gain the advantage they had become so used to having. And on the ground, it felt as if they were met at every turn by a dark-haired Hoshidan swordsman to their left, the blurry figure of a ninja intercepting them from the right.

When that blue-haired youth lunged forward, Yato in hand, Corrin recognised the Valla crown upon their head. They didn’t recognise them; how many successors had there been since they left? How many of Valla’s people had lived and died while they suffered here, killing anyone who came close?

Corrin closed their eyes as the sword pierced their chest. Despite the jagged blade and how much damage they knew it could do, it only hurt for a moment. Beyond that, the sound of the ocean’s waves crashed around them, enveloping them. Finally, they could be at peace.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If you have thoughts of any description on this fic, I'd really appreciate a comment.
> 
> I also have a twitter over @samariumwriting where I talk about my fic and other things!


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